At two doors we saw very pretty and modest-looking young women,--
one with a child in her arms. Indeed, they all have innumerable little
children; and they are invariably in good health, though always dirty of
face. They come to the door while their mothers are talking with the
visitors, standing straight up on their bare legs, with their little
plump bodies protruding, in one hand a small tin saucepan, and in the
other an iron spoon, with unwashed mouths, looking as independent as any
child or grown person in the land. They stare unabashed, but make no
answer when spoken to. "I've no call to your fence, Misser B------." It
seems strange that a man should have the right, unarmed with any legal
instrument, of tearing down the dwelling-houses of a score of families,
and driving the inmates forth without a shelter. Yet B------ undoubtedly
has this right; and it is not a little striking to see how quietly these
people contemplate the probability of his exercising it,--resolving,
indeed, to burrow in their holes as long as may be, yet caring about as
little for an ejectment as those who could find a tenement anywhere, and
less.
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